Penalties and default liabilities

Summary

Changes in the 2000 Child Support, Pensions And Social Security Act include
penalties, new punishments, and what happens before the CSA has sufficient
information. (DEOs, or "Detachment from Earnings Orders", are
the same as the current system, and are not described here).

The existing system has relatively few penalties outside the CSA. So
the CSA imposes "interim maintenance assessments" (IMAs) to
cause people to provide the required information. The idea is that IMAs
are sufficiently high that they will cause people to cooperate. There
are various types of IMA, and some are more effective than others. IMAs
disappear in the reformed system.

Two major changes with the reformed system are:

1 - There is a new penalty, which can be imposed directly by the CSA,
and new punishments, which can be imposed by courts if people are found
guilty of new offences such as "information offences".

2 - There is a simpler default amount that can be required to be paid
if the CSA doesn't have the full information needed to make a proper calculation.

Penalties:

The CSA can impose a financial penalty for failing to pay, as an incentive
for people to pay the full amount on time. (The CSA should not do this
if there is a good enough reason for the failure, and penalties can be
appealed).

They are up to 25% of the liability, so failing to pay (say) £40
in a particular week may result in a penalty of £10 for that week.
This penalty is not part of the child support payment (which remains due).
The penalty goes to the Treasury.

This penalty only applies to cases under the reformed system.

Punishments:

These punishments came into operation early in 2001, and apply to all
cases, not just those under the reformed system.

Courts can impose the following punishments, if the person concerned
is found guilty ("beyond reasonable doubt").

Failing to provide requested information when available, or knowingly
telling lies: a fine of currently up to £1000.

Consistently failing to pay the required amount of child support maintenance:
loss of driving licence for up to 2 years, as an alternative to prison,
and only after other means have failed. The court should take notice of
whether the driving licence is needed for making a living.

Default maintenance decisions:

These are to ensure that money starts flowing as rapidly as possible,
even before enough is known to do the proper calculation. They replace
IMAs. The default payment (per week) is simply £30 for 1 child,
£40 for 2 children, and £50 for 3 or more children.

If the later calculation is higher than this, the extra is due (as arrears).
If it is lower, there is no refund.

(There are also "interim maintenance decisions", which applies
where a "variation" has been applied for and a proper decision
cannot yet be made. Variations, the new name for departures, will be the
subject of a later article).